“It didn’t make a lot of sense, she was exhausted and what she told me was very disjointed. From what I understood of it, she was trying to tell me about something terrible that would happen. Fire and death and the river that defines our territory, those were the details that stuck with me the most.”
Rainypaws didn’t seem too worried, despite the dire message.
“But I didn’t get the impression it would happen anytime soon, so we have time to prepare. I have time to piece together exactly what the threat is.”
Slightly more coherent thoughts about “Endeavour” 9.3
Here be spoilers. And a lot of words. And my unapologetic love for all of the main characters, yes very much including that one. :-)
Oh that was... imperfect and chaotic and beautiful and sad and heartbreaking and heartwarming and frustrating and glorious all at once.
I may not have had much sleep last night. Absolutely over-adrenalined. ;-)
A few brief thoughts and then a longer one...
- Robbie mention! Delightful. <3
- I need Max’s wedding outfit.
- Despite the number of slightly dropped or fumbled threads, everyone had something awesome to do in that one. <3 I felt they underused Jakes (did I hallucinate seeing a clip in which he was a bit more active? I’m wondering just how much they had to cut for time and suspecting it was a lot), but what he did do was wonderful. Now can casting directors please start giving Jack Laskey more attention? Pls and thank you.
- Lott’s death was deeply satisfying. ;-)
- Lott and Peter were never in the same place at the same time. Of course they weren’t. Peter would have recognised him. Fuck.
- Everyone throw awards at Shaun and Roger right now please.
- I’m going to be rewatching the episode twice this week, and maybe I’ll feel differently on each rewatch, but over the rather sleepless night I went from devastated-but-a-little-optimistic to... heartened? A little? Comforted? This isn’t a broken Morse. This is a more closed-up Morse but one who’s decided to definitely live, and is looking to the future with hope and determination. One who’s never going to quite have the life he wanted (or deserved?) but will still have an overall good one. Not quite as much a tragedy as it might have been.
- Never been a big Jim/Joan shipper, but I do think they’ll be happy. She loves both him and Morse, I’m sure, but Jim is capable of actually spitting it out and, well. Can’t blame her for choosing that.
- that scene between Win and Joan was beautiful.
- Bright. <3 <3 <3 <3
And, oh, Fred. Oh love.
I think we’re all going to diverge a bit on here in our opinions of a) what Fred did, b) then what Morse did, c) their goodbye. Which is totally fair enough!!
But my feelings are... sad, dismayed, but loving and compassionate and hopeful. Knowing that he killed “Raymond Kennitt” in defense of Sam and without premeditation. Knowing that his kneejerk insults and callousness about his victim were, well, Fred and his usual bullshit when he knows he’s wrong and is fighting the realisation of it, rather than his considered opinion. Knowing that he was panicking and terrified and exhausted and desperate and ill with it for basically the entire episode, trying to protect everyone he loves (including Morse) from first to last while absolutely burned out. Knowing that he didn’t know that was Peter Williams and likely never will, because one of the things Morse is protecting him from is that knowledge, because killing a man was Fred’s fault, but the fact that the man was Jakes’ childhood friend really wasn’t. Knowing that Fred’s fury on behalf of Jakes and the other victims (including Big Pete) at Lott was absolutely real. None of which makes the murder okay. But my Gods. So very, very understandable. <3
I think the point that Kennitt was really Peter Williams isn’t “Thursday is evil and killed an innocent man and Morse shouldn’t have covered it up”. Sam was truly in danger, Fred was in a terrible state mentally, and the man Peter Williams became was genuinely horrifying. Whatever part of the truth Morse tells Jakes to get him to stop blaming himself for Big Pete’s death, I think that’s knowledge he’ll protect him from, and would even if protecting the Thursdays wasn’t a factor, because hell, what has Jakes done to have to carry the burden of knowing what his friend turned into? (What has Morse done either? Oh, nothing, of course. But Morse doesn’t think like that, bless/curse him. <3 )
I think the point, as always in Endeavour, was that everyone matters and that compassion is essential. Because once you have the context of his life, you see Big Pete standing behind Raymond Kennitt: a damaged and abused child who had been kind to his young namesake, and who was sold to a couple who also doubtless treated him horribly, and who likely was drawn into the gang as somewhere he could feel at home. And sure, you can say that none of the other Blenheim Vale victims ended up like that (quite the contrary, they ranged from a rather kind petty thief to, well, Jakes), but Morse isn’t saying that. Kennitt’s background might not be an excuse for what he’s done (at least a couple of past murders I think it’s suggested?), but it sure as anything is a reason. You can judge him - you should judge him - but it still matters how much he’s suffered. It matters that we care. It matters that Morse cares, and calls Fred on his callousness just as (in a much lighter way) Fred calls Morse on his in 8.2.
But then there’s this, which I think is Fred’s last word on what he did as what he said in the pub was not:-
He gives Morse his service revolver.
It’s not his police gun. It’s his war gun. It’s also his “I am Fred Thursday and I am here to save Morse and/or my family and fuck shit up” gun. His excuse is to give Morse a way of protecting himself from other parts of the Blenheim Vale/London gang, but he knows Morse: he knows that the chances of Morse using it like that are remote. The point isn’t for Morse to have the gun; the point is for Fred to not have it, and to let Morse see that he’s giving him up. To show how much Fred loves and trusts him, and that he acknowledges that Morse is right. Because that gun has always symbolised Fred’s darker (and, to give Fred that needed compassion, very traumatised) side: the violence, the impatience, the rage, the willingness to break rules that are there for a good reason as well as those that are there for a bad. He didn’t use it to kill Raymond Kennitt, but it absolutely signifies the fact that he did.
In the pub he says “I’d do it again”. In giving Morse his gun during their final goodbye? He’s showing that no, actually he wouldn’t, not now. Morse’s words have hit home. They always have. Morse has been engaged in an on-and-off 9-season battle for Fred’s soul and he’s come devastatingly close here to losing that battle, but he hasn’t. In the end, Morse won, and Fred wants him to know that. I don’t think Fred’s path ahead is going to be easy, but he’ll get there, morally as well as in other ways. He has an internal Morse now, I think, who will see him right. And he’s given up his gun. <3
I think their parting, ultimately, is loving. Most obviously on Fred’s side; Morse is putting up even more walls now, alas. But the love is still there. The acts of service. The forgiveness. The handshake. Morse may never see or speak to or of him again, but I don’t think he regrets having known him. I think he’ll carry that love, and all it brought him (good and bad, but mostly good) for the rest of his life. I think he’ll do it gladly.
